Blogging or the first time/gardening for the umpteenth time ....

I garden in Spain. Down south in Andalucia. Once I gardened in England where the earth was rich, dark, friable, diggable, full of worms. I have yet to see a worm in Spain. I suspect they have none. If I was a worm I wouldn’t live here.

In England I had a large garden – three quarters of an acre – and I opened it for charities – the “yellow book” and others. Here I have an acre. 73 almond trees with their delicate purplish flowers in January and right now burgeoning seeds furry and lime green and very touchable. Also olives. But these trees I mostly leave to get on with life by themselves; which is a lazy way of saying I don’t look after them properly.

The actual garden is walled and terraced with stony, hopeless “soil” into which I dig a lot of goat manure ( but as already mentioned no worms to break it all down.) The Spanish like garden flowers in the same way they like their clothes – higher, tighter, brighter. Subtle is not in their vocabulary. Garden centres sell the dullest of plants – the sort that have a lot of colour but no interest. Municipal plants. Nurseries do not exist. Yet there are so many stunning plants that could do well out here. I buy them on trips to England and cram them in my luggage. Mostly they survive, blink, wake up and look for the worms. A bit like me.

I have thought of taking out worms with me - but feel sort of sorry for the worms. And, yes, having no slugs is a great bonus. However there are snails - but of the edible variety so their lives are not so long.

Yep, I can grow some amazing plants - things that in the UK were greenhousebound. But, the getting hold of them is the problem. However I do have some delights. I'll have to get out with my camera and pass on the pictures.

Hi Sorbus! I also garden in Spain, but in the north. Our small plot of land in which we grow veggies and flowers is also VERY stony and compacted with vegetable beds having to be dug out and thoroughly manured - after removing the tons of rocks and stones, BUT we have worms. I have noted that the worm population has increased with our increased digging and fertilising so ... don't give up hope - Spanish worms DO exist. :o)